I haven’t had the time to jot down a word on two on this blog in a while; the reason being that I’m simply at a loss for words. What is happening in the already volatile region ails me to no end. From Gaza to Iraq and now to Lebanon, things are deteriorating from bad to worse. Israel’s actions in Lebanon are yet another form of collective punishment that the Jewish State has so skillfully mastered over the years, with the latest example being Gaza where dozens of civilians, including women and children, have perished. Someone, somehow, must put an end to the carnage. It really is beyond comprehension.

What Hizbullah did was provocative and stupid. I see it as Hizbullah’s way of flexing their muscles. They say their attack across the border was to show solidarity with the Palestinians. What I see is that they not only drug their whole country to the bring of war, and killed civilians from both sides of the conflict, but, ironically, they have managed to distract the world’s attention away from the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Lebanon occupies a special place in my heart. I have visited this beautiful country so many times and every time I go there I fall even more in love with this breathtaking place. I have a number of Lebanese friends who I admire greatly and have the utmost respect. My heart goes out to you in these very difficult times. My heart also goes out to the Gazans who are also being bombarded for the actions of one group who also chose the now trendy regional game of muscle flexing.

My heart also goes out to the Iraqis who are now immersed in a civil war. My heart also goes out to the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Somalis and eventually to humanity itself for what we are witnessing nowadays is a sheer insult to our state of being.

So Zarqawi is dead. Good riddance. To all the skeptics out there, it seems that Zarqawi wasn’t a "US invention" or a "creation by Jordanian intelligence" after all! What will the conspiracy theorists say now? "We need proof!" "We want to see the corpse." [There's now pictorial evidence] Frankly, I would have preferred seeing him captured and then put to justice so that everyone could see how sinister this man was and that he really existed, inflicting terror upon millions and millions of people.

David Igantius wrote in the Washington Post in November of last year that Jordan was determined to capture or kill Zarqawi following the terrorist attacks on the kingdom.

A senior official told me that Jordan is considering aggressive new anti-terrorism operations that will seek to capture or kill Abu Musab Zarqawi and his top lieutenants. When I asked King Abdullah about the campaign, he explained, "Zarqawi brought the war to our doorstep, and there’s a feeling in Jordan that we’d like to bring him to justice."

Well, they were true to their word as:

A Jordanian official said Jordan also provided the U.S. military with information that helped in tracking al-Zarqawi down. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was addressing intelligence issues, would not elaborate, but Jordan is known to have intelligence agents operating in Iraq to hunt down Islamic militants. Source: [MSNBC]

Today is a good day for humankind!